Reluctantly left Paris for Rome, scored more seats up the posh end, taxi ride from the airport was a long series of near misses which we were told was normal! First impressions, old, dirty and very laid back, this also is normal. First two days on our own, walking everywhere again, visited the Vatican made the pope richer, the Basilica, the Trevi fountain, Sue threw the coins in. The Sistine chapel was awesome but the best of the lot was the Basilica, what a building!! The architectural brilliance, construction and artistry is unmatched in our eyes!! Everything else we have seen has been second rate.
We must attract all the weirdos, we went to a cafe called Tony and Dinos. Tony was our waiter, it was like an Italian Fawlty Towers only louder. He bustled up to our table, leaned over and spoke very fast " antipasto eh?" and was off before we could say anything, like maybe, menu? He came back with glasses plates and cutlery,plonked them down and before we could draw breath said " you need red wine, eh?" and was off. This performance continued through a very nice meal all without seeing a menu but we called a halt when he tried to give us a 2nd pasta dish, which we sent back. After coffee he brought a bottle of limocello, homemade he said, and left it on the table for us to help ourselves, it had obviously come out of the freezer and was delicious although our mouths were numb for about half an hour after leaving the cafe. What a character, he was like that with everyone, staff and customers, we never actually saw a menu until we had finished our meal!! Joining the tour after two days on our own was a little restricting but its a good group with a few Aussies, although we have migrated towards a group of 6 Yanks who are a bit younger and like a drink, or two. Our first trip was back to the Vatican etc but we left our guide behind and went to the Basilica and spent our time there. We went and had lunch and joined the group later. We have also had tour around Rome which makes you realise that you really need a few weeks to really see the place. We were taken to the Colliseum and then the Parthenon, another incredible building. Our guide was a history professor, very cynical about the church and the government! He was brilliant at explaining how the building was constructed, it's positioning and the way numbers influenced the interior, he made me feel like going to college again!! I could have listened to him all day! We had a restaurant recommended to us which we walked to, it wasn't bad but not great, I think maybe our expectations were a little high! Food in Italy seems to run on a theme of, antipasto, pizza and pasta all with varying degrees of expertise but generally good. We then took off for Sorrento where we visited an olive and lemon farm, on about 5 acres. They also had pigs, cows, sheep, ducks, chickens and tomatoes. They make their own salami, prosciutto, salsa, pâté and mozzarella and of course Limoncello!! This is the new drink of the summer, made with lemons, sugar and vodka it is a refreshing and potent beverage! We were at the farm to have a demonstration of making mozzarella, this was a fairly sedate process with the usual oo's and ahh's, we then were treated to an antipasti meal in which all the ingredients were made on the farm, including the red wine. All very happy we were then treated to a demonstration of pizza making, a few people were the guinea pigs but two of the guys make pizzas for a living so we were treated to the whole deal, throwing the dough in the air, fantastic. By this time the sedate tour group had become an unruly mob! The pizzas were cooked and we all trooped up to sample them. The tables were again filled with food and the pizzas and of course red wine. By the end of the meal people were basically well out of their comfort zones but the real game changer was the sampling of the Limoncello which was homemade and made the mouth go numb. A lot of people by this stage were talking gibberish and making all sorts of profound statements. I think everybody bought more Limoncello than they wanted, I bought 4 bottles but it was so cheap!! This was the highlight of the tour so far it certainly loosened a lot of people up, we , of course were already loose!! So on to Capri.